Coloradans with ties to Cuba reflect on Fidel Castro's death

By Karen Antonacci

Staff Writer

Posted:
12/02/2016 06:45:41 PM MST

Updated:
12/05/2016 10:57:49 AM MST

Avelina Questa, center, and Iris Castillo wave Cuban flags as they attend a rally Wednesday for freedom and democracy on the communist island following the death of former Cuban President Fidel Castro in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami. (Wilfredo Lee / Associated Press)

Castro, along with his brother, Raul, and Che Guevara, led the Cuban Revolution and overthrew then-President Fulgencio Batista in 1959. Castro then took power as Cuban Prime Minister, becoming president in 1976.

Castro was a repressive leader, banning free speech and religion. He jailed or executed political opponents. While he offered education to Cubans, he also kept them in a state of abject poverty, due in part to the nation's icy relationship and trade embargo with the United States.

'Elated'

Cristina Aguilera, of Boulder, was 10 years old in 1960 when her parents fled Cuba under Castro's new regime.

When she learned of his death on Nov. 25, Aguilera said she felt "elated."

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"All of our family members started texting and playing music," Aguilera said. "I know that probably not a lot will change until maybe Raul passes. But it is still a really joyous occasion for exiled Cubans."

Aguilera said her family were entrepreneurs in Cuba before the state seized all private business. That's when her father, who owned a rebar factory, decided they would leave for the United States.

"My parents waited and realized that (Castro) wasn't bringing democracy. He was bringing what he called socialism but it was really communism," Aguilera said. "My father stayed behind because they had no money in the U.S. and my grandfather had gold bars buried in the backyard he wanted my father to dig up and send. He came later."

Aguilera said Castro's death is an end to a symbol of repression and a drastic change to her life.

"Who knows what my life would have been like if he had not come in and done the revolution," Aguilera mused. "I remember at the airport they took my mom away to be searched and they left these four kids on a bench and there were military guys with machine guns all over. I have a lot of fear and have lived with a lot of fear."

Aguilera tried to return to Cuba with a humanitarian mission from Boulder but was turned away in Cancun, Mexico, because even though she is an American citizen with an American passport, the Cuban government considers her a Cuban national.

"They see me as a bad person for having left," Aguilera said. "It hurt and I lost a lot of money ... it's my place of birth and I can't go back. It feels like I lived in a dream. Was it really real? Did I really grow up there? I have maybe three pictures of me as a little girl and that's it."

'This will allow for positive change'

Kristy Socarras Bigelow, owner of the Cuba Cuba restaurants in the Denver metro area, said the last few years of President Barack Obama trying to normalize relations with Cuba has been very emotional for her family.

Socarras Bigelow's father participated in the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion, when the CIA attempted to train Cuban exiles to overthrow Castro in 1961.

Her father spent two years in Cuban prison with many of his friends, she said.

"You don't want to dance on anyone's grave for sure, but I am celebrating the opportunity that this will allow for positive change for everybody inside and outside of the island," said Socarras Bigelow, who was born in Miami.

Socarras Bigelow said that even though Cubans are under a state-mandated period of mourning for Castro in which they can't celebrate birthdays, listen to live music or consume alcohol, many on the island are secretly joyous.

"There are some great Instagram (accounts) from Cubans in Cuba, and they are kind of going underground and talking to other Cubans about how they really feel and how excited they are," Socarras Bigelow said. "They're not allowed to express that because they'll go to jail."

Socarras Bigelow said she isn't sure what the next step for Cuba is but she has wanted the Cuban people to be free since she was a little girl.

"His brother (Raul, age 85) is very old. I don't know what the next step is; maybe one of the kids in the family," Socarras Bigelow said. "At some point the island has to stand up and require an election. I don't know how they will do it because they feel so powerless. But they are starting to feel more powerful."

Present and future Cuba

Longmont resident Jenny Desmond runs a Cuban tour company called Viva Cuba and returned from a trip to Cuba on Nov. 20. She said that the Cuban people are hopeful that the government will continue to become more progressive under Raul Castro, who opened the country up to small business and some internet connection since he officially took over for his ailing brother in 2008.

"Raul was progressive and welcoming to President Obama, meeting with him," Desmond said about Obama's historic March visit to the country. "Fidel refused to even acknowledge it and then he wrote that article slamming the 'empire' in the national newspaper The Granma."

Desmond said she reads the Spanish version of the newspaper controlled by the communist party because she has noticed that stories critical of the American government have been removed from the English version posted online.

Desmond said that on her most recent trip to Cuba, it seemed that Raul Castro was opening up relations to the U.S. in order to improve the circumstances of Cubans. She said that some Cubans are receiving small business loans to turn their homes into bed and breakfasts or restaurants, called casas particulares.

"The state is incentivizing people to create bnbs and casa particulares in their houses so that there's a place to house all the tourists," Desmond said. "And it keeps Cubans happy because they get to make a little more money."

During her most recent trip, Desmond reported talking to a bus driver who quit his job as a veterinarian that paid $10 per month from the Cuban government. Now he makes a salary of $10 per month, a per diem for meals and $250 per month in tips as a bus driver, Desmond said. And he saves the per diem because Cuban casa particulares usually give food free to other Cubans who bring in tourists.

But there is still widespread poverty in Cuba, Desmond said. In November, she approached a group of elderly people waiting in line and asked what they were doing. They were waiting to get their ration of meat, which is only allotted to people over 65 years old, people with a young child in their household or people dying of cancer.

"Tourists will never experience that," Desmond said. "We go into a restaurant and choose from pork, chicken, beef or lobster or shrimp and we're paying $10 U.S. for a meal and for Cubans, that's a whole month's salary sitting on a plate."

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